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He shook his head. “Go for it.”
“Okay, yesterday you mentioned the conditioning of the calves. What happens this time of year with all the cattle? I never see a whole lot when we drive around on the ranch, and I only saw the ones in that front pasture on our horseback ride.”
“Well, for starters, you’re only seeing a small part of the ranch. They’re out there, just a bit higher up. We’ll start bringing them down to the lower pastures here in the next week. The ranch has different divisions.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“One part of the ranch is used for growing things like alfalfa and silage for hay. One pasture is barley and millet, or winter wheat. Tanner and Timberlynn run another division of the ranch. They not only train horses, but they breed them. Specifically roping horses. And Ty and Dirk run the bull breeding and the training for the PBR bulls. Our ranch produced last year’s number one bull in the PBR.”
“Titan,” I said as I wrote down some notes.
“That’s right. He was a fun bull to ride.”
“You rode him?”
He nodded. “In the beginning, when Ty was training him.”
“Do you think I’d be able to see him work a bull like that? Training-wise? I would love to see that!”
Blayze shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I’d think it would be good for your article.”
“Oh yeah, it totally would be great for the article. Plus, I really want to see it!” I said with a smile. “What do you feed the cattle? I know they don’t simply graze on grass.”
“No, ma’am,” he said with a chuckle. “They eat a balanced diet. Native pasture, good quality hay that we grow, and supplements if it’s too dry for the hay due to a drought, or if we get snowed in.”
“Speaking of winter, what in the world do they eat when there’s snow on the ground?”
“Well, the first thing we need to do is make sure they’re all healthy during the late summer and fall. A lot of work goes into making sure they’re fed and happy in the winter. Our cattle are horn-trained, which means when we honk that horn, they come running from everywhere.”
I smiled at the picture that brought to my mind. “So I take it you grow the hay for winter consumption?”
“Yes, and we also sell it. But yeah, we grow most of our hay for the cattle and the horses. The healthier the cows are, the better they are at breeding and calving. We have a pretty strict winter-feeding program.”
“Do you only put out the big bales?”
“Sometimes. If the cattle are fenced off, we’ll do what’s called ‘laying down the feed.’ We spread it out for them.”
“How many tractors do you have?”
Blayze laughed. “A lot.”
He pulled up and parked next to a few other trucks. “Looks like my dad is here.”
“Yep. Do you guys ever take a day off?”
He winked. “Cowboys don’t know what that means. Will you need a place to work in the barn?”
I attempted to hide the surprise in my voice as I responded to his kind gesture. “I saw some tables outside the barn. I can always sit there if I need to.”
Blayze stared at me for a moment before his smile grew. “Not when it’s cold outside. I’ll make an area for you. That way you don’t have to go back to my house or up to my folks’ house to work.”
“Um, thank you.”
Blayze tipped his cowboy hat and got out of the truck. I knew by now to wait. He was going to come open my door whether I wanted him to or not. He walked to my side, opened the door, and waited for me to gather up all my stuff. Once I was out of the truck, he smiled and said, “Have a good day, Georgie.” And then he was gone.
I spent the rest of the day shadowing Brock, as well as Clay and Decker. Every now and then I’d see Hank, but he seemed to be more of the foreman-type guy on the ranch.
As I watched Blayze fill his father in on a few things that were happening on the ranch, it was clear to me that Brock had handed over a lot of the day-to-day operations to his son and was focused on charity work. Though he clearly wanted to be kept up to date with what was going on with the ranch. He met with Blayze once in the morning and once in the afternoon, if time permitted. Every. Single. Day. When Blayze said cowboys didn’t know what a day off meant, he wasn’t kidding. But after talking to Clay and Decker, I did learn that they rotated weekends off. I was glad to hear it. I also found out that most of the ranch hands had worked here for years. Some started when they were sixteen years old and had been here ever since. The pay was good, they were treated well, and they all felt like they were part of the family.
